chelle

Whatever...I think that situation and everyone's opinion is well documented from the bs I endured last year. It's in the past. Just like bolts, no one is truly interested in a discussion and I am not interested in their opinions.

Yeah, I'm sure I'll meet ya. Never said I was gutsy. My slides will be more of the pretty picture variety, than the "this is the way coolest fucking climb that noone in this room is man enough to do besides me" variety... If nominating you for the aid climbing style police is gutsy then I am guilty. Later, dudes. Off to work.

Naw. That was this thread.

There is never "no impact" when pension/401k managers are hired and fired. If the new manager takes the securities holdings in-kind and manages the portfolio to his/her liking in such a way that attempts to minimize impact, then there may be low impact on the market and on fund performance. Trading cost, timing of trades causing market impact (prices drop when shares are sold, and rise when the new manager tries to buy). We're not talking about a small amount of money here. It could take months to trasition the portfolios to have low impact. Any one of the funds that is firing Putnam probably has billions of dollars with them. Why do you think their parent company stock has been hammered over the issue? And the CEO of Putnam has resigned. Putnam is just one of many mutual fund managers involved in this situation who handle the trillions of 401k and pension money. A number of the top 20 fund complexes are charged with violations -- Fidelity and Bank of America are two more. Depending on how the situation shakes out this could have a very large impact on securities markets. The losers are the average joe/jane shareholder. The brokerages get paid coming and going. The fund companies get their commisions (if the shares are in a load class) and management fees regardless. And the "costs" are hidden in a lackluster share return, that the average 401k plan member barely understands.

Those egotistical jerks in DC are playing games again. One CA rep is trying to use tearing down the LeConte memorial bldg to pressure the Sierra Club to back off on opposing more campsites. And how the hell are people supposed to get in and out of the park without a shuttle service. This is what our tax dollars pay for? BS legislation that takes up Congress' time. - - - - From the Modesto Bee 10/30/03 Controversial Yosemite bill scrapes by committee The 99-year-old LeConte Memorial Lodge in Yosemite National Park would be removed under legislation by Rep. George Radanovich. By MICHAEL DOYLE BEE WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- By the narrowest possible margin, the House Resources Committee on Wednesday approved legislation to add campsites at Yosemite National Park and "remove" the park's historic LeConte Memorial Lodge. The committee cast a 21-20 party line vote to approve the legislation by Rep. George Radanovich, a Mariposa Republican whose district takes in Yosemite and stretches to Modesto. "I'm pleased," Radanovich said, "and I think this drives home the point that progress needs to be made on the Yosemite plan." But the one-vote margin, and the failure to sway any Democrats, including Merced Democrat Dennis Cardoza, also suggested that the legislation in its existing form faces an uphill battle on Capitol Hill. The bill's next step is the House floor; it is not likely to be taken up there before next year. Radanovich was the only lawmaker at Wednesday's hearing to speak in favor of the legislation, while four Democrats raised concerns about it. In particular, the bill is attracting notoriety over its provision to dismantle the 99-year-old LeConte lodge, one of five Yosemite buildings listed as national historic landmarks. The Sierra Club operates the lodge as an education center. Radanovich, who regularly clashes with the Sierra Club, contends that the environmental group is hypocritical in pressing to reduce the number of Yosemite campsites even as the club maintains the lodge. Yosemite activist Ken Gosting, director of the Mariposa-based group Transportation Involves Everyone, also commented by telephone: "To just tweak the Sierra Club on an emotional basis is not up to par for a U.S. congressman. "The LeConte lodge provisions are a burden for the rest of the bill, some of which has some validity to it." The legislation calls for "removal" of the granite-and-wood lodge and "restoration of the grounds of that memorial to its natural state." Radanovich contends that "removal" could mean relocating the building outside park boundaries. Cardoza said he supported the bill's call for more campsites but said he had to vote "no" because of the Le- Conte provision. Radanovich said the bill would have secured a larger victory margin had it been considered earlier in the day, before a number of Republicans left the unusually long committee meeting. Seven Republicans and four Democrats missed the vote. "Its prospects are good," Radano-vich said, adding that the vote "just makes me more determined." Democratic lawmakers and environmental group representatives, including Jay Watson of the Wilderness Society and Courtney Cuff of the National Parks and Conservation Association, said the LeConte provision is only one part of the bill deserving stricter scrutiny. They also question how the bill might affect Yosemite's existing management plans. The legislation calls for returning "low-impact" campsites along the Merced River, where the New Year's flooding of 1997 washed away 361 campsites. Existing park plans call for keeping the Merced River area undeveloped. The legislation also prohibits the establishment of shuttle bus service for remote parking facilities or areas outside Yosemite's boundaries.

that can shake this tenuous economic recovery. Especially if 401k and pension plan administrators start widely firing money managers and there are no buyers for all the stock that may need to be sold. And I sure am glad I was able to cash out my retirement fund stock in Putnam's parent company earlier this year. - - - - - - From today's NY Times: November 4, 2003 Extensive Flaws at Mutual Funds Cited at Hearing By STEPHEN LABATON WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 — The mutual fund industry, plagued by a series of recent scandals, was battered on Monday by new details of widespread trading abuses, the removal of the top executive at a big fund company and the disclosure by federal regulators that the industry faced an imminent wave of government lawsuits. The scandals also produced their first senior government casualty when Juan M. Marcelino, the head of the New England regional office of the Securities and Exchange Commission for the last 10 years, said he would step down amid criticism that his office failed to investigate promptly a whistle-blower's accusations in March about problems at Putnam Investments. Putnam, the nation's fifth-largest fund company, said on Monday that its chief executive, Lawrence J. Lasser, would be leaving in the wake of recent accusations by federal and state prosecutors of civil fraud by the company. As a result of those accusations, six states and New York City have told their public pension funds to stop using Putnam as a fund manager, and others are considering similar moves. On Capitol Hill, where federal and state officials testified on Monday at a Senate hearing on the mutual fund industry, lawmakers have begun to call for significant changes in regulating the industry — which is in its greatest turmoil since it came under federal oversight more than 60 years ago. Mutual funds, which manage money on behalf of their shareholders by buying and selling stocks and bonds, control some $7 trillion in investments for 95 million investors, and the industry's reputation as a haven for unsophisticated and small investors has taken a beating. Several lawmakers have introduced legislation that would require directors of mutual funds, including board chairmen, to be more independent from the management of the funds. But federal and state officials and other experts said on Monday that the problems were not with the regulations but with lax enforcement of existing rules. Eliot Spitzer, the New York State attorney general, who has moved more aggressively and quickly against the funds than his federal counterparts, attributed the problems to complacent directors — a shortcoming that has also troubled some of the nation's largest corporations and the New York Stock Exchange. Mr. Spitzer said that in future settlements with funds, he would demand that the penalties for serious infractions include returning fees to investors. "We have opened up a window into a morass of problems," Mr. Spitzer said at the Senate hearing. "This is a window into what has been foggy, murky and impossible to understand." Stephen M. Cutler, the head of the S.E.C.'s enforcement division, said at the same hearing, by a Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee that investigations and a recent survey had found widespread suspicious trading practices. They ranged from overcharging many customers to giving preferential treatment to the largest ones, including confidential market information. "The `unholy trinity' of illegal late trading, abusive market timing and related self-dealing practices that have recently come to light are matters that affect us all," Mr. Cutler asserted. "And they go right to the heart of the trust — the covenant, if you will — between mutual fund and other securities professionals and the individual investor. As my colleagues and I have gathered evidence of one betrayal after another, the feeling I'm left with is one of outrage." Mr. Cutler also said more than 25 percent of brokerage firms that sell mutual funds and 10 percent of the funds surveyed had permitted customers to engage in late trading that may have been improper. Such trading involves buying or selling shares of a fund at the 4 p.m. closing price at some point later in the day. Documents from nearly one-third of the brokerage firms, he said, indicated that they might have helped customers engage in possibly improper trades by such methods as concealing their clients' identities through special accounts. He said that more than 30 percent of the fund companies had disclosed information about their portfolios selectively, to certain shareholders, giving them the ability to place advantageous trades. Mr. Cutler and Mary L. Schapiro, the top regulator at NASD, said a joint inquiry had uncovered that at least one in five investors in Class A shares of mutual funds — those that impose a sales charge upfront — were not given discounts on large trades and, as a result, were overcharged an average of $243 each in the last two years — a total of at least $86 million. Mr. Cutler said that "a significant number of brokerage firms" would receive notification this week that they were likely to face agency charges of securities law violations for overcharging customers. The firms were obliged to provide the customers with discounts for buying shares above certain limits, but failed to, Mr. Cutler and Ms. Schapiro said. Ms. Schapiro said that about two dozen brokerage firms would be accused of failing to provide discounts to mutual fund investors. "There was pretty systemic failure," she said. While only three senators appeared at today's subcommittee hearing, there is deep interest in the issue in Congress. Both the Republican chairman and the ranking Democrat on the full Senate Governmental Affairs Committee criticized the S.E.C. for not moving sooner or acting before problems were brought to its attention by Mr. Spitzer. Senator Susan M. Collins, the Maine Republican who heads the committee, said, "I question why the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has regulatory responsibility for the mutual funds and their broker-dealers, has failed to detect these practices, to impose appropriate restrictions on them, or to penalize those who appear to be misusing investors money." The senior Democrat on the committee, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, issued a similar statement. "The S.E.C. was far too late to the table in addressing these problems," Mr. Lieberman said in a letter to William H. Donaldson, the S.E.C. chairman. "Now that the problems have come to light," Mr. Lieberman wrote, "I am once again left to wonder: why did the watchdogs fail to bark? Mr. Cutler acknowledged that the commission should have acted more promptly against Putnam. In March, a Putnam employee reported that some union members were day-trading Putnam funds in their 401(k) plans — moving money in or out within a single day — in ways that other investors could not. Mr. Cutler said the agency could not always handle such complaints when it receives an average of 1,000 tips a day. "Do I wish that we'd have brought the Putnam case two months ago instead of two weeks ago?" he asked. "You bet I do." The Boston office of the S.E.C. had neglected a tip from a whistle-blower in March about problems at Putnam Investments — which prompted the informant, an employee at a Putnam telephone call center — to take his information to Massachusetts securities regulators. They have since made a major case against the company based on the tip; other accusations of improper trading practices by Putnam have also been made recently by the commission. The S.E.C. said Mr. Marcelino, the head of its New England office, had decided to step aside, "given the recent press coverage of certain matters involving the Boston office, to minimize any further distractions for his staff as they continue the critical work of the office." Three officials said Mr. Marcelino had been forced to resign by Mr. Cutler after Mr. Cutler became dissatisfied with his account of the incident. Mr. Marcelino, who in nearly 20 years of service at the commission has received several agency awards for distinguished service, did not respond to calls left at his home and office for comment. Mr. Cutler, in an interview this afternoon, said Mr. Marcelino had made a "personal decision after a distinguished career to step down and I have to respect that."

Brrr!!!! It's gonna be way COLD ...but I'm still planning to head down and chase the sun.

No need to dredge that up again Dave. I feel Ricardo's pain... As for nominations...it's a toss up between Glassgowkiss and Necro. Or are they the same person?

Agreed Rudy. Anonymity makes spraying much easier. Although a few people around here say there assholes in real life too, most I've met from the board are not the same jerks in person that they "play" on-line.

Maybe he's still recovering from his hangover...

Was watching "The Italian Job" last night and noticed that Spiderman makes a brief cameo in the crowd when they blow the road from under the truck in LA. Anyone else notice something funny like this when watching movies?

I heard of someone else nailing on Zodiac on a solo ascent this summer... Damn aid climbers! You know who you are.

Sips, they were sips... That stuff is my favorite. Hey Paco, we need to see the photos!

Yeah call me a light weight. One Full Sail Pale Ale, a flaming Dr. Pepper, a shot of amaretto (ok maybe 2) and then a shot of Malibu rum (problem was that all this was drank in about 2.5 hours...) Then about 2/3 gallon of water from about 1 am -4:30 am when I sobered up enough to get my sorry home to sleep. Thanks to all who made my 34th memorable, both online and in reality. At least the parts I can remember. BTW spent the day at the mixed ice climbing clinic and had a blast. I guess I'll have to take back all the b.s. I said about it being dumb. It's actually fun in the gym and I can see good potential for real rock/ice too be a blast too.

I thought they all took "The Snow Leopard"... I couldn't finish it because he just kept droning on and on... how come no one has flamed me yet for asserting that people go to Tibet with a book about Nepal? Because you said people go to Nepal with a book about Tibet. Which is what I subtly implied. Guess I forgot you have to be direct when communicating with guys... back to my mars/venus book! Nepal is a beautiful country though!

It's not even 5 pm here. No worries, I am sure I will be plenty drunk in a few hours.

Sometimes I need a change. I'll bring the froggy back... I needed to "shake off" some "stuff" when I found my tree, so it fits for now...

34 and proud of it. We'll have to see about the candles...but that is a good idea.

I think a couple regular cc.comers were climbing at Index during the March 2001 quake. Pretty scary from what I recall. I was looking up at Shirley on the Lower Town wall last Sunday. Thought it'd be a fun practice pitch. Thought about the rockfall that Dr. Jay had last year while trying the pitch...then noticed another big block right at the base of the route that looked very recent. I said and just wandered around for the rest of the afternoon.

Here's a book you should check out. I think you'll find the answer in there.

Thanks everyone. You make me Tonight's gonna be 'n and Eddie - once again here's my drink limit! No mas! Kapiche?

I thought they all took "The Snow Leopard"... I couldn't finish it because he just kept droning on and on...

"Storms of Silence" Joe Simpson "The Last Step" Rick Ridgeway "The Ascent of Everest" John Hunt "Tents in the Clouds" Monica Jackson & Elizabeth Stark

Thanks JayB, but I knew that one. If the economy is truly recovering then yes, the jobs will come. I still don't think that the average American is going to believe that the economy is improving until: (not in any specific order...) 1) more people who are looking for reasonably paying work find it 2) state and city governments stop cutting services and begging the national government for funding 3) the federal government stops high levels of deficit spending 4) capital market returns actually benefit the average 401k participant, meaning they start seeing positive returns each quarter on their statements for awhile 5) gas prices at the pump return to "reasonable" levels 6) layoffs and fear of layoffs become rare events Sorry you're just not going to convince me. Maybe I'm ignorant, but I do understand my economic situation and the situation of most people I care about.

Who knows who is "right" unfortunately you can only know the answer in hindsight. I guess that the treasury secretary was right that growth would be high again this quarter, but we'll see about the long term picture next year this time. Especially where jobs are concerned. - - - - October 21, 2003, Tuesday BUSINESS/FINANCIAL DESK NY TIMES Treasury Chief Sees a Jobs Boom, But Most Don't By EDMUND L. ANDREWS (NYT) 834 words WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 -- Expressing a confidence that goes well beyond the projections of many economists, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow has predicted that the American economy will add two million new jobs before next year's elections. In an interview with The Times of London on Monday, Mr. Snow predicted that the economy would grow at an annual rate of nearly 4 percent over the next year and add about 200,000 jobs a month. ''I would stake my reputation on employment growth happening before Christmas,'' Mr. Snow said in the interview, which a spokesman confirmed as accurate. ''Everything we know about economics indicates that the sort of economic growth expected for the next year, 3.8 to 4 percent, will translate into two million new jobs from the third quarter of this year to the third quarter of next year,'' Mr. Snow elaborated. ''That's an average of about 200,000 new jobs a month.'' In offering such confident and explicit predictions about job growth, Mr. Snow went well beyond the general cheerfulness that President Bush and administration officials have repeated for some time. But Mr. Snow's could come back to haunt him if job growth continues to be lackluster for much of the next year. Most economists, from those at the Federal Reserve to those on Wall Street, agree that economic growth has already accelerated sharply, but many are skeptical that the job picture will improve much by the time Mr. Bush faces re-election next November. ''We are surprised that Snow would choose to hand the Democratic presidential candidates this optimistic prediction, instead of managing expectations more conservatively,'' Jan Hatzius, a senior economist at Goldman Sachs, wrote in a note on Monday. Mr. Snow also provoked surprise in the financial markets by asserting, in the same interview, that he expected interest rates to rise. ''Higher interest rates are an indicia of a strengthening economy,'' Mr. Snow said. ''I'd be frustrated and concerned if there was not some upward movement in rates.'' To some, that sounded like a pronouncement about how the Federal Reserve should conduct monetary policy. The Federal Reserve has said it plans to keep short-term rates at the current low levels for ''a considerable period of time.'' But Rob Nichols, Mr. Snow's spokesman, said the Treasury secretary was not commenting about Fed policy. Rather, he said, Mr. Snow was merely observing that long-term interest rates tend to rise as economic growth accelerates. Mr. Snow's boast about job growth could cause heartburn for him and for President Bush if it does not materialize, because Democratic lawmakers and presidential candidates would almost certainly accuse Mr. Bush of failing to make good. Since Mr. Bush took office, the economy has shed about 2.7 million jobs -- most of them in manufacturing and many in politically important swing states like Illinois, Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Acutely aware that his father was defeated for re-election in large part because of the country's economic woes in 1992, Mr. Bush pressed Congress to pass a $350 billion tax-cut package this year and promoted it as a ''jobs and growth'' plan. Faced with a choice between cutting taxes and letting the budget deficit climb to record highs -- $374 billion in 2003 and probably above $500 billion in 2004 -- Mr. Bush sided firmly with cutting taxes. Though the tax cuts do appear to have fired up the economy over the last few months, with some economists estimating that the gross domestic product roared ahead at an annual rate of 6 percent to 7 percent in the third quarter, job growth remains anemic at best. Last month, for the first time in a long time, the government reported that the nation had added about 57,000 jobs. But most economists, including those at the Fed and many in the private sector, predict that job growth will remain modest and that unemployment will remain near 6 percent. The reason for such caution is that companies have been increasing productivity at an annual rate of well above 4 percent for much of this year. If the economy really were to start generating 200,000 jobs a month, it would have to grow by at least 4 percent throughout the next year and productivity growth would have to slow. ''The risk of being wrong on at least one of these counts seems dangerously high from a political perspective,'' wrote Mr. Hatzius of Goldman Sachs. White House officials take a different view. N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, said in a recent interview that both the economy and the labor market were capable of growing more rapidly than conventional wisdom would suggest.